How To Monetize A WordPress Blog – 34 Instant Ways To Boost Income

Bloggers are worried that if they start monetizing their blog they tend to lose readers. Your readers and subscribers will suddenly think you’re a sell-out, and like others, you have also become part of the corporate machine to think only of making money from your blog.

But here’s the thing – your audience doesn’t just want you to start selling, they need it. In fact, it’s your duty as a blog owner to do it.

Because monetizing a blog isn’t about the money. It’s about helping people.

Every product you sell on your blog helps your audience to improve. You help your audience to know about new products and services in the market. For that matter let it be a book on Amazon or any deals related to WordPress hosting or plugins.

You also help your audience to buy the same product and service a discounted price and also offers them to choose from varieties.

All of it helps them with their goals. And why shouldn’t you stand to make a little money whilst you do it, right?

So you don’t look this article as 30 ways to boost your income from your audience.

Instead, think of monetizing a blog as 30 ways to help your audience improve their lives. Which is a lot more fun to do, isn’t it?

Monetizing A Blog With Advertising

Because TV advertising also sucks. And it’s products that you don’t want being forced down your neck.

But with your blog, you have complete control over the adverts that you show to your readers. If you don’t approve of it, they can’t put it on your site.

That means you can choose products that will benefit your readers and are related to the topic.

So remove any negativity you have about advertising because it’s simply another way to help your audience.

#1. Renting Blog Space For Adverts

Renting your blog space for adverts is most common and easy way to monetize your website.

You can either directly sell advert space on your blog with simple WordPress plugins like advanced ads (check out best advert selling plugin supporting Adsense too) or you can create an account with buysellads.com or adclerks.com and rent your website space.

buysellads.com or adclerks.com charge commission from the publisher for using their platform. Also, you need good traffic on your website to get approved for these platforms.

If you are renting your adverts space directly to the advertisers than you can also set up a subscription service for it. Your website should not be full of ads as it affects the user experience on the website and you may land up without selling even a single space.

[With Avertising] I was soon making a couple of thousand dollars a month. After eighteen months or so, I was averaging $3,500 to $5,000 a month—not bad for something that had started out as a hobby.” – Michael Hyatt

#2. Google Adsense

Google Adsense is the most trusted way of earning from your blog. Getting Google Adsense account approved is bit difficult process, but once the account is approved you can place ads on your website with few clicks via advancedads WordPress plugin.

#3. Product Or Service Review

It is most effective and simple way of monetizing your blog. It will not only increase the relevant content on your website and helps you get better in search engine ranking but will also get you a good amount of income.

You can write a review about any product and services that fits your niche. It will also help your readers to select the better product.

Are there any:

Books

DVD’s

Webinars

Physical Products

Online Services

that fits your website content, then go ahead and write the review about them.

This works in either of two ways:

Paid Reviews: Where services or companies ask you to run an article about their product. They’ll usually give you free access, and you can give your honest opinion.

Affiliate Sales: You could promote a really good book on Amazon. A service you’re connected to. Or, set up an account with a site like CJ Affiliate for lots of options to fit your niche.

To put it simply, if there is an affiliate program available for the product you’re reviewing, by all means do sign up. Just don’t make affiliate sales your main goal when writing the review.” – Karol K

#4. Udemy Courses

If you’re not sure what it is, here’s the simple version: you create video courses to help people in your niche.

Udemy provides you the platform to host your courses and get targeted audiences for it. Anyone who registered for the course needs to pay some registration fees ( registration fees varies between courses to courses).

Udemy keeps some part as their commission for providing the platform and rest is given to you.

It also works as two simple income streams for you too. Because you can:

Create your own courses: If you’re confident standing in front of a camera and teaching your audience, you can create and sell your own courses.

Affiliate sales: Camera shy? Don’t fret. You can sell links and places on other people’s courses through their affiliate program so you never have to do the dirty work yourself. Just, be sure to vet the course before you promote it.

#5. Amazon Affiliate Sales

Amazon affiliate sale is very simple to use and providing very good revenue to bloggers.

All you need to apply for the programme and once your account is approved you will get HTML codes, that you need to paste in your website.

It’s also the best way of promoting some of the more psychical products – like books and appliances.

Suppose:-

Run a blog about juicing? Promote your favorite blenders.

Run a blog about running? Link to your favorite shoes.

Run a blog about the fancy dress? Link to all the products that make up your outfit.

Simple. Easy to do. And unlocks a lot of the options on this list for you.

#6. Blogging Assignments

Blogging assignments is another good way to earn money for your blog. Simply promote the brands of your niche and get paid.

It’s not whom you know, it’s about how you can promote their content and brand.

You can directly contact the brand via their contact page and send your promotion proposal to them. You can charge them for promoting their content after few negotiations.

These assignments come in three main forms:

Events: Attend an important brand event in your niche. Write about it. Get Paid.

Reviews: Get first hands on a new product and write about it. (Read: A2Hosting Review)

Affiliates: Join a brand’s network of affiliates, and get paid to write about their new releases when they come around. ( Create your affiliate account)

#7. Recommended Reads

This is somewhat related to affiliate marketing. Here you recommend books, guides and premium products to your readers.

Whatever you are recommending to your readers should be relevant to the content of your website.

Recommending things relevant to your content will give you more weightage and sells.

You can make it really accessible too with simple amazon affiliate links and images.

#8. Recommended Products

Recommending products on your website is different from running an e-commerce shop on tour website.

You try to recommend the products which are relevant to the content or article that your readers have just read.

Here are some examples to give you an idea for what I mean:

Ran a post about how to tune your guitar? Recommend an electric tuner in, or at the end, of the post.

Posted about writing your first book? Give them an affiliate link to Scrivener.

Written about designing your own blog? Pop an affiliate link to the theme you used at the bottom of the post.

This sort of selling has a really high chance of converting through Tutorial, Case Study and How To posts. Especially if it’s something that made your life easier.

#9. Charging For Premium Contents

Charging for premium content is again an effective way to earn money for the time you have spent in creating them. I am a firm believer to help my readers free of cost.

But “Hello”, somewhere you have to create a line for providing the free content on your website. You charge a one time fee from your readers to access premium content on your website, else you can also create monthly subscription plans.

Which is exactly what Brian Clark over at Copyblogger did with his Authority program.

He decided to keep giving away free content on the blog, and valuable eBooks to free members and the general public. But, he sorted the wheat from the chaff by only allowing paying readers the opportunity to read their most valuable content.

It benefits you because you know your readers are getting their best results.

It helps your readers because they get exclusive content nobody else can.

And, you get an actual return on your time invested in your longer, more actionable content.

That what we in the business call a win/win/win.

#10. Donations

You require some money for maintaining your blog or website. If at all you have decided to provide the contents free to your readers and even not advertising on your website.

This is the best thing can ask your readers in lieu of the time you spent in research and writing content for your readers.

You can ask for a small amount of donation from your readers either onetime or in a monthly subscription form. Well, if you are really providing the content of their need they will not hesitate to donate on your website.

But sometimes – like Maria Popova at BrainPickings – your blog is a service people want or enjoy, that you can’t quite monetize. It’s quite common with your more artistic, less practical blogs.

Of course, you shouldn’t try and build your sole income from this. But it’s a good source of income if you really don’t have other options for monetizing a blog.

#11. Live Online Workshop

Got an authority blog? This is the perfect method to monetize your blog.

You might get afraid that you must be a good public speaker to carry out a live online workshop. Well, it’s not as you think. It is like a having a skype call with few of your biggest fans.

I have run it myself and the intensity of your fans will keep on increasing every time hold a workshop.

The way to create the content for these is simple:

Carry out a keyword research and think of a popular question in your niche

Think of it as a Podcast or spoken blog post that your students openly interact with. Which, if they’re reading your blog already, they’re going to want to do.

It doesn’t matter how niche your blog is. How obscure the question is. Or how little you think people want to hear you talk. If they’re on your blog, there is a workshop to be made for them.

You might be thinking, “How do I promote it?” though. Which is a really good question.

There are a couple of easy ways you can do that, though:

Set up your own affiliate sales program

Guest blog and link to your new course

Feature on someone else’s podcast

Facebook and Twitter Ad’s

Follow the same principles you have been doing whilst you build your blog, and you’ll soon find lots of people willing to pay you for the pleasure of your time.

#12. Sell DVD’s or Recordings Forever

If you are planning to hold an online workshop then don’t forget to record it. Now you have the real product liked by your fas and you can sell it again and again.

Don’t forget to update your recording contents regularly. The way things are changing globally you need to update your contents and methods regularly.

With your own live workshop, you have just started the passive online income. Well Done!

The next question is what to do with these live workshop recordings or how to sell them online. Don’t worry just continue reading!

You can turn it into a:

Online Course: Just like the Udemy courses you saw before, but straight from your own site.

Multi-Level Package: You could charge $99 to own the workshop. But if they want to e-mail you and ask questions? Well, that’s going to be $149.

eBooks and PDF’s: Jump on Elance and hire someone to transcribe the whole course, and turn it into a cheap, easy to download eBook.

There are a lot of benefits to doing this outside of money, too.

For example; you can connect with your readers in different time zones, or reach out to people with different learning styles who need more auditory or interactive learning styles.

The value here is endless – to you, and your audience – so when you feel you’re established enough in your niche (let’s say 1,000 e-mail subscribers as a benchmark) this is a brilliant way to go.

#13. Write & Sell eBooks

If you have a blog and you have the knowledge about your subject than you should think of writing an ebook on your subject. Writing an ebook not only preferred by readers but also gives authority to your content.

Why people prefer ebooks:

Is always accessible to your reader

Carries more authority than a blog post

Makes the reader more invested in the subject – because they paid for it

Ebooks are much more popular with Kindle publishing and pdf downloads.

I am also planning to write an eBook on a topic of my niche and publish it on Amazon. I will surely update it once it is completed. But what about someone who has already published an eBook:

Beau Norton, the owner of Health and Happiness Foundation, makes $2000 – $3000 each month from the sales of his eBooks, purely on Amazon. You could be doing the same too.

[Sell] Ebooks. If you can create premium content for your readers, they will be highly likely to buy it. Plus you’ll make more money than if you just shoved ads on your blog.” – Neil Patel

#14. Rotate From Free To Paid Buy In’s

Every online marketer or blogger always have buy in’s for their subscriber. Subscribers are the readers subscribe to your blog with their email address to receive regular updates.

Buy in’s are the product or service you offer them via email or on your blog free or paid.

The standard products are:

eBooks and Guides

Exclusive Podcast’s

Checklists

Email courses

A really cool way to make a little money from this simple process is this:

Create three products

Make one your free buy-in

Charge for the other two

Rotate every couple of months

This creates scarcity for your product – which is a powerful tool in sales – but also creates some hype and buzz when you finally release it as a free product to new users.

It also means that, straight off the bat, you’re able to promote and make the new subscriber aware of some more of your lovely, reasonably priced, products too.

#15. Bundle Your Products

Let me make it simple to understand, If you go to Amazon to buy a product, you get an option below saying if you buy this product with another then you get the extra discount.

Still confused?

Ok! If you have an eBook worth $5 and you have two other books worth $15 and $20 each. How about if I tell you that I will give you all 3 products for $25.

Here what your readers will save money and you will increase more sales of your product. Also, you will get a good review for your product and promotion too.

That’s essentially what you’re doing when you create a product bundle. And it works. Quite well, actually.

This works well for:

Courses and eBooks

Physical Products – like the T-Shirt and Journal combo in the picture above.

Subscription packages and Services

Pretty much anything it makes sense to bundle together

You can mix and match this with affiliate products, and your own products, too. For example:

Which means that this, if you would like to, it a great way to start earning a little cash, simply by referring people to your own host.

There are people out there who want their own sites. And they’ll come to you for advice at one time or another. This is a nice little affiliate to have in your back pocket to help others get online.

#19. Coachings Or Consultation

Some people always require guidance to carry out their jobs. So the number of personal coaches or consultants are increasing on internet too – in all niches

In the interests of helping people, this is where you can have the biggest impact on your readers. It’s also the most common-sense follow on from blogging.

Because, well, they’re there for you, aren’t they?

Cost, pricing, and timings come down to who you are and the niche you’re in. But you have free reign over all of it.

I can 100% guarantee you that there is someone out there willing to pay you for it. So why not add a coaching page now?

“Even a beginning blogger can usually get $99 an hour for a telephone coaching and sometimes a great deal more.” – Jon Morrow

#20. Subscription Forums

Apart from you interacting with your readers, your readers also want to interact within them self and show that all are part of this community.

This helps in close bonding between all the community people and giving more authority to your contents.

And, it doesn’t matter what niche it is. It can be anything in the world. Heck, I bet you could start a whole paid forum on Tumble Dryers if you really wanted to.

You might be thinking, “I can start a forum for free!”

And, you would be right. But here’s the thing with that – you’re sacrificing the quality of your forum. If anybody can join, anybody can post. And if anybody can post, they can post any old rubbish they want.

It keeps the spammers away, which leaves your readers – now members – in the peace of mind that they’re in the right place.

#21. Create Job Board

Are there people in your Niche looking to get hired, or find freelance work? If so, you might just have found the perfect income stream.

Not only does Darren Rowse’s blog teach people how to be better bloggers, it connects them with blogger jobs too. But like all smart businessmen, he doesn’t do this for free.

To post a job on the board for 30 days costs $50. Which keeps the riff-raff at bay, but allows people to find good quality jobs in the blogging niches.

Even if only one person were to post a job on his board, that would still be $50 in his pocket for little to no work whatsoever.

Could you do the same on your blog?

I’ve seen it done on:

Fashion Blogs

Marketing Blogs

Development Blogs

Engineering Blogs

Art Blogs

Health and Fitness Blogs

If you could put the right people, in front of the right jobs – for the right price – not only are you helping your audience, but you’ve become a networking mastermind.

#22. Sponsered Posts

Sponsered posts are those for which you get paid.

confused?

Well, yes when you have a blog with good traffic and reader base, there are big brands which will pay for writing or mentioning about their products or services within the post.

Suppose, if you are writing an article about the best theme for WordPress blog. There are many brands that are offering free and paid themes.

Carry out the in-depth research about the topic and get to the conclusion. Contact the theme providers and ask for some sponsorship for writing about their theme.

Believe me, you actually get paid via this.

But you’re definitely wondering how you get these posts, aren’t you?

There are a few ways:

Pitching: If you want income this way, you can actively pitch to companies or advertising agencies and offer the space.

Create an Advertising page: Outline how much it costs and sit back and wait.

Network: Speak to companies and agencies to see what they want from native advertising, then offer it to them.

You could stand to make a couple of hundred dollars, and lighten your content load all at the same time.

Sponsored content is what a publisher creates and then a brand pays for.” – Copyblogger

#23. Create A Shop

An online shop might be something you never even considered. But, through the power of affiliate sales – and marketing – it’s a great place to put the products your readers might need; right next to the content, they love.

The only limit to this is your creativity and the relevance of the products you’re selling. But, at the core of it, you’re just making your readers lives much easier.

#24. Promote A Relevant Service

There are a lot of services which are released on daily basis of your niche, find them. They all have their marketing manager who is looking to promote them via various means.

Why don’t you provide them a space on your website to promote their services on your blog. Join their affiliate marketing and promote their products.

Helping your audience doesn’t end on your blog. It ends when they’ve achieved their goals. So putting them in touch with the right products and services makes you even more helpful than you were before.

If it’s truly a product you believe and would use yourself, you’ll have no problem selling it and turning a profit.

#25. Paid Membership Groups

Mastermind Groups and Blogging are a match made in heaven when monetizing a blog.

It’s where the truly committed minds from your audience can come, talk about ideas and you can help them – quite directly – move forward towards their goals, or with your niche.

This is a bit different to a forum. In the way that it isn’t ‘Ask a question; get an answer’.

It’s more that you pose a question or a task, and your readers can join in, or achieve a weekly goal that they’ve committed to with the group.

Think of it more as a support group for people working towards a common goal. Like Alcoholics Anonymous but for your niche.

This makes a great subscription service, and can even be an addition to your forum for those elite members. It’s simple to set up as a Facebook group or private area on your site too.

But, wait…

It also comes with a ton of benefits for you:

Content Creation: You can ask, directly, what your audience is looking for – and how you can help them.

Evangelists: Help enough people and you’ll have people marketing your blog for you.

Instant Customers: Just add water. Or products. Whichever works for you the best.

Prices for these kinds of groups vary. So it depends if you want a lot of members, for a lower price. Or fewer members for a higher price.

The Nichehacks Private Mastermind has over 1,000 members on Facebook right now. Imagine all of those people were giving you just $3 a month? You’d be laughing all the way to the bank…

#26. Create A Membership Site

Throughout this article you’ve read about:

Courses

Forums

Mastermind Groups

Workshops

eBooks

Now, this is where you roll all of those into one, lovely, membership site.

Technically this is an extension of your blog. But, my g**, is it a good one or what. If you’re positioning yourself as an authority in your niche, this is one of the best products you can create.

For example, Jeff Goins’s Tribe Writers, is a membership site that only opens three or four times a year. And it only lets in 150-200 students on average. Which are always filled in a matter of days.

It’s a full-blown course with: forum’s, eBooks, mastermind groups and personal coaching that teaches you not only how to become a better writer but to find your whole entire audience.

He also charges upwards of $100 per membership.

You can make one of these sites for literally any niche.

Here are a few ideas that I’ve come up with for some main blogging niches that might get your creative juices flowing:

Parenting: The New Parents Crash Course – How to manage your life from the moment your baby is born, through to teething and everywhere in between.

Finance: The No-Debt Society – A full membership with strategies to manage your cash, get out of debt and plan each and every month.

Personal Development: Mindfulness Matters – A step-by-step course, with a forum, that helps you get from overthinking life, to living in the moment.

Business: The Well-Fed Affiliate – How to start an affiliate business, from scratch, with a forum and mastermind group for guidance.

They might not be million dollar ideas, but you see what I mean.

Take all the questions your audience might have and give them a place to find the answers, and work alongside you.

“[They] launched ViralURL four years ago and the site currently boasts 74,494 members with a total all-time membership count of more than 210,000. Since the launch, Klinkert and Bauer have seen a total income of $3.2 million.” – Marla Tabaka, INC.com

#26. Surveys & Polls

Google Consumer Surveys now gives you a way to make money by simply asking your audience questions.

The amount you stand to earn from these depends hugely on your traffic. The split is 50-50 between you and Google. But you can earn $0.05 per question answered. Which, over time, is a nice little piece of passive income.

And it could even give you a little insight into what your audience is really thinking too.

Be sure to take a look at these other survey sites too!

#27. Promote Membership Sites

Don’t want to set up your own membership site? Then try monetizing a blog by promoting another one in the meantime.

Again this is a great affiliate scheme that can really help you make a few extra dollars each month.

oDesk – the freelancing site – are willing to pay $50 for every lead you send them, that converts into paid work for someone. If you know people in your niche looking to hire, why not send them that way?

Find a relevant site, join the affiliate program and promote it. It’s really that simple.

#28. Email Adverts

Earlier you read about Native Advertising, and how it can be used in blog posts.

But do you know what’s even more valuable to someone looking to advertise? Your email list. This is the Holy Grail for them – and, if used sparingly – can be highly effective for you, too.

From renting space to sending that e-mail, there are lots of ways for you to make money with the right customers.

However, don’t ‘plug’ too often, or you run the risk of being the boy who cried wolf and disengaging your audience.

#29. Sell Your Blog

There comes a time in every blogs life where you feel that you’ve taken it as far as it can go. Which leaves you three options:

Let it die: Log out and never log back in again.

Give it away: Find someone good to run it and hand it over.

Sell it: The smart option, right?

Sites like Empire Flippers help you sell your site to the right person, for the right amount of money. And, if you’ve got the right following, you’re able to sell it for quite a good sum of money too.

Think of it this way:

You’ve taken the time to build a business. That’s what your blog is at the end of the day. You shouldn’t just hand over the keys and walk away, you should get the best possible return on your investment.

This is it.

#30. Newsletter Adverts

Newsletter adverts are similar to email adverts. The main difference is email can be solely used for promoting some product or service, whereas newsletters are generally used to provide the updates of your blog to your subscribers.

Hi, I am Pradeep Beniwal and I am into website designing and blogging from 2009 onwards. Finally, I have developed this blog to help everyone creating their own blog and websites. Articles will help to develop your own blog easily and also provides you tips to earn money from your blog.